Tuesday, January 3, 2012

We've long been seriously in love with Damon Albarn's Mali Music, so when a friend at New Year's asked if we had heard about the Blur and Gorillaz frontman's African project, we knowingly smiled and knowingly informed them that they were about eight year's late to a seriously awesome musical experience. Well, allow us to stand corrected. It turns out, in fact, that we were about two months late. Albarn returned to Africa and released a new record in October, this time from the Democratic Republic of Congo's capital city of Kinshasa. The result is a record entitled Kinshasa One Two, and it's a doozy.

With a process similar to Mali Music, Albarn headed to the DRC to allow Western producers to collaborate with native DRC musicians. While we haven't gotten our hands on full record quite yet, but from everything we've heard it appears to be just as, if not more, enticing than it's predecessor. Albarn apparently brought along Dan The Automator for the adventure, along with XL Records head Richard Russell, and the trio recorded the collaborations with locals in a week's time. Not half bad, if we do say so ourselves.